Local knowledge

Taxis

Taxis are easily hailed in the city-centre streets, and the main ranks are at New Street Station, Digbeth Coach Station and Stephenson Street. The city’s black cabs are run by TOA Taxis (0121 427 8888).

Tipping culture

10 per cent is usual in restaurants, but some add a discretionary service charge to the bill automatically – double check to make sure you don’t double pay. Tips aren’t automatically expected in bars or taxis, but are appreciated.

Packing tips

Shoes that won’t give you blisters: from canal-side strolls and café hopping at Brindleyplace to all-day shopping expeditions at the Bullring, there’s plenty to see on foot.

Recommended reads

New Zealand might get all the Tolkien attention these days, but the young JRR grew up near Birmingham and credited Moseley Bog as inspiration for Middle Earth’s forests in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Jonathon Coe’s The Rotters’ Club is based on the author’s life in 1970s Birmingham, and David Lodge fictionalised it as Rummidge, the setting for his novels Changing Places, Small World, Nice Work and Thinks…. Poet Benjamin Zephaniah hails from the inner-city Handsworth neighbourhood and did his first writing and performing around Birmingham before leaving at 22: his poem The Big Bang looks back at his hometown years later. Romance novel fans were outraged when it emerged that the M6 toll road leading to Birmingham was topped with pulped Mills & Boon books, so a copy of Louise Allen’s Seduced by the Scoundrel or Disrobed & Dishonoured might be appropriate.

Regional specialities

Several British staples were developed in Birmingham. Back in 1824, John Cadbury started selling chocolate on Bull Street, then in 1837 Alfred Bird invented his eponymous custard powder at his chemist’s shop down the road (he invented baking powder a few years later). HP Sauce was launched by the Midlands Vinegar Company in Aston in 1903, the same year that the first ever pot of Typhoo tea was brewed — also in Birmingham. In the 1980s, the debut of the balti made Birmingham the UK's ‘curry capital'.

Currency

Pound sterling.

Dialling codes

Country code for the UK: +44. Area code for Birmingham: (0)121.

Do go/don't go

January’s usually the coldest month, and Birmingham’s gets hit by a relatively high number of snow days in comparison to the rest of England. May to August is the most reliably temperate time (this being England, though, don’t count on too many sunny days in a row).